Through Glass
by Ko-chan to Ya-chan
Summary: It isn't what I'd expected it to be. Though, thinking back, I can't imagine what I could have expected in the first place. Maybe I'd assumed, having been safely reunited with my other self, I would simply fade away into nothingness. ...I didn't.
1. Chapter 1

K: Yes, yes. . . I realize I should be finishing chapter 5 of "The Apparition," but as this idea has been swimming in my head since I heard Stone Sour's "Through Glass" again, and I can't really make the video I want to for it quite yet, I figured the next best thing would be to write an adaptation of the story I want to capture with said video once I figure out how to make it.

As such, I hope you enjoy this story.

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**Disclaimer:**Kingdom Hearts is copyright Square Enix and Disney 

**Dedications:**

Uzumaki-sama (my mentor, whose works I shall always hold in high regard)

Epitaph-Please-Write-Me (whose dry, sarcastic humor reminds me so much of my own at times)

Eguana (whose lovely illustrations never fail to take my breath away)

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"_**I'm looking at you through the glass  
Don't know how much time has passed  
Oh God, it feels like forever  
But no one ever tells you that forever feels like home  
Sitting all alone inside your head"**_

_**- "Through Glass" by Stone Sour**_

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_**  
**_

**Through Glass**

**Chapter I: Return**

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(Roxas) 

It isn't what I expected it to be. Though, thinking back, I can't imagine what I could have expected in the first place. Maybe I'd assumed that, having been safely reunited with my other self, I would simply fade away into nothingness. I was content to melt smoothly back into Sora's consciousness, weary of feeling incomplete. Despite the people who I'd known during our time apart, I wouldn't have minded much at all if I had simply ceased to be. No one would have really missed me anyway, since the friends I knew were never real to begin with. The versions I had known were merely data. It wasn't as if I had anything to go back to other than myself. And, I suppose, maybe Axel.

But that hadn't happened. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have a feeling it has something to do with Sora. When we had first merged into one being, it had started out as I had thought it would. After I realized what was happening, I'd relaxed, allowing myself to be absorbed by the warm, soft light of Sora's soul. Really, it wasn't so bad at all. At the very least, it was nice to find a place I would be welcomed so openly after all I'd been through.

Then something happened.

As I felt myself sinking down into the light, a cool, dark hand reached out, grasping my wrist, and pulled me from my fate. When I had looked up at the owner of the hand, I was surprised to find myself staring into a pair of glowing golden eyes- the unmistakable eyes of a heartless. I made to pull away, frightened by the idea that a heartless had somehow found its way here, in the very depths of the keybearer's being, but stopped as I noticed that there was something rather peculiar about this particular heartless. Namely, it looked exactly like Sora. Gazing into those brilliant yellow orbs, I knew that, as strange as it sounded, that was precisely who it was. Part of him, at least…

It was odd, but even in this dark visage, Sora's personality came through. Not wholly, by any means, but subtle hints of it were there. For example, despite his cold, blank features, I could sense him smiling at me. A glint of mischief danced within his eyes, perhaps amused by my reaction, and as he pulled me to my feet, as it were, I had the distinct feeling he was laughing at me. Indeed, no one but Sora could possibly produce a heartless such as this. It seemed that even his dark side could never be anything worse than an impish shadow. How very like him.

The dark creature, or Antisora, as I have come to call him, released me, then placed himself between the ball of light and myself. Motioning to the light behind him, he shook his head, then pressed a dark hand first to his chest, then to mine. It took a second, but I understood- we were not to go there. It was not our place. I nodded, letting him know that I had worked out his message, and he seemed satisfied with that. Taking my hand, the heartless guided me up and away from the light- away from what I would come to realize was Sora's somebody.

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He had taken me to an empty room, not unlike the one I had found Naminè in during my adventure in the old mansion, and gestured to the white expanse before us. I looked at him quizzically- he didn't really expect me to stay here, did he? A bit annoyed by my reaction, he gestured to the room again, then closed his eyes, his hands held out in front of him; concentrating. At once darkness flowed from his open palms, spilling out onto the polished white floor and creeping slowly toward the corners of the room, up the walls, and dripping thickly from the freshly covered ceiling. Then it began to recede, evaporating into a dark mist, and returned to its creator, swirling about him until it was absorbed by his person. After the last spot of black was gone, the heartless opened his eyes, lowering his arms before turning expectantly to me.

Shrugging, I closed my eyes, raising my arms as he had, and pictured what I wanted the room to look like. My hands began to tingle, the air singing as it had whenever I had summoned the keyblade, and when the ringing in my ears ceased, I opened my eyes to a place I'd never thought I would see again. Everything was just as I'd remembered it, which I suppose made perfect sense, considering I had made it that way. Still, a small smile made its way to my lips as I surveyed my handiwork, taking in the sunset colored walls and cluttered bookcase. As I stepped forward, running my hand over the old fish lamp perched on the desk, the heartless disappeared, fading into the shadows, and left me to my own devices.

Circling the room, I fondly caressed a few of my more sentimental possessions, noting with a relieved sigh that the blue orb from the Struggle trophy had found its way to a small pedestal on my desk, right beside the money pouch Olette had given to me.

Well, the fake Olette, anyway.

I sighed, making my way over to the bed, and lay spread eagle on top of the covers, thoughts of my friends weighing heavily in my mind. True, they weren't real- not the ones that I had known, anyway- but I didn't have the heart to banish them from my life forever. I may not have had a heart when I had known them, but my memory, when paired with Sora's heart, made it seem as if I'd had one all along. The real Pence, Olette, and Hayner, if they even existed, would know nothing of my existence, but I would still know them, and that was all that mattered.

They were still my friends, even if they didn't know it.

Curling up on my bed, I watched the shadows dance around the room, grow long, and slowly melt into the darkness of night. Closing my eyes, I breathed in the scent of the ocean, and allowed the whisper of the wind in the trees to lull me to sleep.

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K: Well, there's chapter one for you. This will obviously be multiple chapters, as this one merely set up how the story begins, and didn't actually reach the point in time where Roxas is yet. Everything so far has been in past tense, and is the story he's telling/musing to himself about, not his account of what he's actually doing in the present. 

Anyhoo, I hope you like it so far, and I'll try to actually finish this one, hopefully in a reasonable amount of time. I just felt like writing it since I haven't been able to write anything in a while, and this was the dominant idea lodged in my brain.


	2. Existence

K: Here's chapter two, since I had already started writing it anyway.

Enjoy.

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**Disclaimer:** Kingdom Hearts copyright Square Enix and Disney.

**Dedications:**

Ragged-ashes

Uzumaki-sama

Eguana

Epitaph-Please-Write-Me

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"_**How do you feel? That is the question  
But I forget you don't expect an easy answer  
When something like a soul becomes initialized  
And folded up like paper dolls and little notes  
You can't expect a bit of hope  
So while you're outside looking in  
Describing what you see  
Remember what you're staring at is me"**_

"_**Through Glass" by Stone Sour**_

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**Through Glass**

**Chapter II: Existence**

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(Roxas)

When I awoke, it was not to the cacophony normally caused by the bustling city, but instead to the delighted cry of Sora and his companions, reunited after nearly a year of slumber. Jumping a little, I quickly rose to a sitting position, and gazed out of the window, expecting to see the streets of Twilight Town below. Instead, I found myself staring out at whatever it was Sora could see. Blinking, I rubbed at my eyes, then did a double take to be sure I wasn't dreaming. When nothing changed, yesterday's events finally caught up with me, and I felt rather foolish for thinking I was back home, or whatever Twilight Town had been to me.

Sighing, I returned my attention to Sora's surroundings. It seemed as if they were somewhere in the lab beneath the mansion, judging by the many sleeping pods adorning the walls, and I was suddenly reminded of Naminè. She had been the one who had helped reunite Sora and I in the first place, and I found myself wondering if she was hidden away somewhere, watching over us.

After many hugs and excited greetings, Sora straightened up, observing the room, and motioned for his friends to follow him through the door at the other end of the hall. As the trio made their way through the complex basement of the mansion, I was reminded of my own experiences in the digitized version of this world. I became so lost in memories of Axel, Naminè, and the rest of the organization that I tuned the rest of the world out, ignoring whatever Sora and his companions were doing. I never would have realized we had arrived in the white room if Sora hadn't said something that caught my attention.

"These pictures… They seem… familiar, somehow."

Stirring from my thoughts, I glanced up, coming face to face with a sketch of Axel and I in the world that never was. I frowned, recalling the events of that night, but was more intrigued by Sora's words. Was it possible that his déjà vu stemmed from my own memories?

"Well, how could they be, Sora? I'm sure we've never met anyone like that…"

"I know, but… It feels like I've seen this red haired guy before. I can't remember a name or anything, though."

I watched him circle the room, drinking in each of the drawings pinned to the walls, and attempted to get him to remember them by focusing my thoughts on my memories of each event. All that happened, however, was that he seemed to linger a bit longer at any drawings of me. After viewing every picture on the wall, Sora turned his gaze toward the ground, searching for any more he might have missed among the scattered pieces of parchment that littered the floor. He caught sight of a pile of sketches in a corner of the room and approached it, kneeling down so he could pick them up. He flipped through them, quickly shuffling through the various landscapes of a beach and the city, then abruptly stopped when he came to a portrait of me.

It was well done, just as all of Naminè's work had been, and featured atop a building in the city that never was. My legs hung over the edge of the flat roof, the folds of my cloak waving slightly in the wind, and the outline of my face was just barely visible in the stormy shadows. I was gazing down into the city, the constant rain pelting my hunched form, and in my hands I held a keyblade.

As I moved closer to the window to study the picture better, I was surprised to find Sora's knuckles had turned white from clutching the paper so tightly. His tanned hands trembled, from excitement or something else I didn't know, and he ran his fingers across the paper, tracing my curved outline.

"Th-this is…"

My breath caught. Did he actually recognize me? Was it even possible? A million fervent questions raced through my head, blurring together to form one cohesive statement- "Sora, I'm here! I exist!"

To my disappointment, my words fell on deaf ears.

"Guys, look! Doesn't this look like Oblivion?"

"Oblivion? Why would that guy have something like that?"

"Maybe it's a picture of you, Sora. A'hyuk."

"But I've never been there!"

"I guess not, then. But hey, doesn't he seem kinda sad?"

I tuned them out, too focused on pounding on the window pane as hard as I could in an attempt to reach him.

"Sora, I'm right here!! Can't you hear me?"

All at once I was encircled by a pair of cold, dark arms that gently but firmly pulled me from the window. I struggled in the creature's grasp, trying desperately to claw my way back to the glass, but he was too strong. As Sora's anti-form carried me away, my spirits fell. It seemed my voice had failed to reach him after all.

Lowering my gaze, I allowed the heartless to escort me from the room, not really caring where I was being taken to. In my disheartened state, I failed to notice Sora delicately fold the parchment and place it in his pocket.

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K: Well, there's chapter two. Not exactly long, but it's longer than the first chapter at least, so hopefully it'll continue on that path. We get a peek at Roxas's feelings about Sora and his own existence, as well as more of the ever enigmatic Antisora. Sorry if it seemed a little boring, but I wanted to set up the main scene more than anything else, and am too lazy at the moment to go back and rework some of the more dull sections. Maybe I'll come back and fix it at a later date.

Regardless, I hope you continue to enjoy this story, and please review if you have time.


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